Flag Recap Feb. 7, 2009

WEATHER: It might have rained elsewhere around SoCal, but it was dry and beautiful down in Venice. Beautiful puffy clouds, loads of sun and pleasant temps. On the way home, heading east on the 10 towards downtown was a gorgeous rainbow.

GAME: I always lose track of the score at a certain point, but it was close throughout. White won and never trailed.

WELCOME: A big welcome to four new players – Derek, George, Yos and Anthony. In what may be a first, all four scored touchdowns in their first game.

NEXT: We are back at Penmar Park Saturday Feb. 14 at noon. In case of predicted rain, check this blog around 11 a.m. Saturday and it will be updated in case of cancelation. At least one player did check the blog update, which was good, but he then forgot to bring a white shirt. One out of 2 isn’t bad.

CATCH OF THE DAY: Had to be Anthony’s on a long pass from Toby. He reached up as he was falling backwards, kept his concentration and maintained possession while hitting the ground. Replay review confirmed it was a catch.

PASSES OF THE DAY: Toby lobbied for this since Anthony got best catch, but I’m not buying. I’ll give it to Christophe for his great escape and throwback across the field on fourth down to Derek for a TD; and to me for my corner fade to Toby for a TD.

MOVE OF THE DAY, OFF THE FIELD: This goes to Duffy, who was hurtling out of bounds towards Brent standing on the sidelines. He then executed a perfect hurdle over Brent’s head as he crouched down and no one was injured.

MOVE OF THE DAY, ON THE FIELD: Demond caught a quick slant pass and Yos got in position, set himself and prepared for what he thought would be an easy flag grab. Wrong! Demond put on the brakes, changed course and Yos had a “WTF?” look on his face as he grabbed air. “I need to put flags on my dog and practice chasing him around!” Yos said.

TRICK PLAY I: Christophe threw to Duffy, who then batted the ball up volleyball style to Derek, who had the catch until Toby came in and knocked it away. I disputed whether it was a designed play since Duffy always bats the ball when he catches it. J

TRICK PLAY II: It was set up perfectly. I was center and was the last guy to the line and was to do a quick snap to Toby. The defense froze and we had them off guard. Except that no one on the offense moved except Toby and I. The best laid plans.

TIGHTY WHITIES: I am still confused as to how Yos could have mud on his hands and up and down his arms and still have a white tank top that looked like it was freshly bleached.

HEIGHT ADVANTAGE: Derek is 6-8 and Christophe made great use of that with nice lob passes that resulted in key catches all game.

BONEHEAD PLAY OF THE DAY: Dave Sobel had two TDs, a conversion, a pick and a couple of sacks, but he did have the “Doh!” play of the day. He caught a pass and had an easy TD, but got confused by the markers and stopped at the 3-yard line. A heads-up Demond ran over and grabbed his flag.

ALEJANDRO’S GREAT ADVENTURE: It was fun watching Alejandro snap the ball in only his third flag game ever. Some of his snaps were like helium balloons and the rusher was almost at the QB by the time the ball reached him. Once, he decided to hike on “down” instead of hike, and once he dribbled the ball backwards to the QB. But he gave it a great try and got better as the game went on. As a receiver, though, he caught about 7 passes and had no drops.

RATE THIS: Demond played a little QB and went 3 for 3 for about 40 yards, 1 TD, 1 conversion and no picks. I ran it through the NFL ratings calculator and it comes out to 154.9 (perfection is 158.3).

NOTABLE: Great pick and runback for a TD by George. … Demond had a really nice grab on a deep go where he caught the ball by reaching over the defender, keeping his balance and scoring. … I had two really funky passes that were still complete. One I kind of skyhooked to Alejandro, the other I threw about 6 inches off the ground to Marino, who made a great catch. …

Brent and Dave were the game’s sack masters and Jeremy also chipped in with one. … Jeremy also had a great long pass catch and run to set up a TD. … Eugene and Duffy tried to one-up each other with TD catches on consecutive drives. … Three catches and no drops for me this week! … Nice catch and long run by Chris for White’s first score. Oxygen was brought in after.